..für: Werke für Campanula (+Harfe) places Works for Campanula, harp and playback by Michael Denhoff, together with references to Bach, Kurtág, Bialas, Heindrichs and Maiwald at the centre. The programme follows no mere succession of separate titles but develops an arc of its own: formal proportion, sonic gesture and the transformation of movement into repose can be experienced as a continuous narrative. Michael Denhoff, Ute Blaumer opens up this music with a reading that makes detail audible without losing sight of the larger whole.
Denhoff, Michael & Bach, Johann Sebastian & Kurtág, György & Bialas, Günter & Heindrichs, Heinz Albert & Maiwald, Torben is the compositional point of reference for this edition. Set against the horizon of Baroque music, classical modernism, contemporary music, it becomes clear how many shapes the language of sound, compositional technique and expression can take together. Michael Denhoff places the Campanula – an instrument with 16 diatonically tuned sympathetic strings – at the centre. Its spatial sound, rich in overtones, joins with harp, playback and compositional traces of memory. The selection leads not into a museum-like retrospective but into a living present of listening: structures become intelligible, the particularities of the works take on profile, and familiar as well as unexpected turns gain weight.
The scoring — Solo instrument, Campanula, harp, playback — decisively shapes the character of the album. Registration, resonance, breath, touch and silence are treated as musical forces. Where lines overlap, rhythmic impulses gather or tone colours merge into one another, the layout remains transparent. It is precisely this that creates the fine relations which open up further on repeated listening.
Michael Denhoff, Ute Blaumer joins technical command to a clear, unforced musicianship. The playing follows the individual character of the works while maintaining an overarching dramaturgy: fragile moments lose none of their tension, virtuoso passages stay articulate, and strong contrasts are not put on display but developed out of the musical material itself. This gives the edition concentration and a convincing inner calm.